It's a Great Life: Tracing my roots

I’ve always been told that my heritage is German and Scotch Irish, and I’ve never questioned that — until now.

It happened the other day when I was overdosing on corn chips.

I was diving into a bag of wonderful corn chips — the dipping kind, not those weeny skinny ones — because in my mind, I could do so just coming off of a two-week illness in which I had no appetite. On the mend, so to speak, I decided to eat, in moderation of course, all the things I usually avoid but l-o-v-e.

And corn chips is one of the things I l-o-v-e, but avoid.

Actually, anything with the word “corn” in it, appeals to me.

And that’s when a light went on in my head.

I’ve always wondered why I love certain foods. I figured, due to my love of grits, I was misplaced as a child. By all rights I should have been born in the South.

I also love black eyed peas, ribs, greens, cornbread — and there it is again. That word “corn.”

At the thought of corn, on this particular day, my imagination went into a tailspin.

“I’m not German and Scotch Irish,” I said to myself. “I was born into a tribe of Indians — probably a Southern tribe due to my love, also, of all things Southern like grits, greens, etc. Then,” I continued to myself, “someone or ones spirited me away from the Southern tribe of Indians and transported me to the cold North and told me that I was descended from those German and Scotch Irish people.”

And they fed me stuff like shoe fly pie, red cabbage and pork and told me my blood line was mostly German.

The more I thought about this, while indulging in my bag of dip-size corn chips, the more sense it made.

Then my reasoning hit a snag.

The “corn” part makes sense, as to my Southern Indian heritage. But what doesn’t is my sense of direction.

Generally I can’t find my way out of a paper bag. And if I had Indian heritage, I should have a sense of direction.

The only exception is Disney World. Boy, you can’t lose me there. I can get from the Magic Kingdom to Epcot in the blink of an eye, and I can get from Mexico in Epcot to Canada, also in Epcot, without breaking a sweat.

So I faced a dilemma.

On one hand, my hypothesis made a lot of sense.

On the other hand, it didn’t hold even channel water, so to speak.

I don’t know how to solve this current dilemma.

I think I’ll just solve my problem with another bag of dip-size corn chips. That’s my comfort food, and once I overdose on corn chips, I really won’t care a flip about my roots.